Small Mobile business helps train cyber investigators across the globe

View full sizGus Dimitrelos, seen in this recent photo at his computer lab in downtown Mobile, has contracts to write computer security protocol for several foreign governments and training cyber investigators abroad. (Press-Register/Victor Calhoun).

MOBILE, Alabama -- When the U.S. government wants to help train foreign law enforcement officers on how to extract the hidden secrets of a laptop computer or a cell phone, it often turns to a small company in Mobile.

Gus Dimitrelos and a team of digital forensics experts working for him on a contract basis have traveled the globe to run seminars.

“You can name a country and we’ve been there — not the nice ones,” he said. “We don’t go to Italy. We don’t go to Germany.”

Dimitrelos, 44, imparts knowledge gleaned from years of experience: He’s been a member of an elite cyber security team run by the Secret Service, spent a stint leading the Alabama Computer Forensic Laboratory, and served as a private consultant.

Break uncrackable codes? Patience

Click here to see how Gus Dimitrelos believes rapidly changing technology one day will allow investigators to access to a password-protected laptop computer that authorities believe hides child pornography.

Dimitrelos at one point had up to 5 computers working to solve the encrypted data. Now, he said, he will simply wait for the inevitable technological breakthrough that will allow him to accomplish the task easily.

The forensics training program, directed by the State Department, gives partner nations the equipment that they need and provides the expert instructors. Dimitrelos’ firm, Cyber Forensics 360, is one of the subcontractors.

In exchange, Dimitrelos said, the U.S. gains allies in the global fight against terrorism and cultivates cooperation in criminal investigations that may cross international boundaries.

“They really emphasize the relationship part of it,” Dimitrelos said.

Dimitrelos, who lives in Daphne, said he’s built relationships that have endured well beyond the end of the training sessions. The foreign law enforcement investigators are eager learners, he said, and routinely send him emails with follow-up questions.

“My inbox is full,” he said.

During training assignments, three instructors teach eight to 10 courses over a couple of weeks. The lesson plans vary depending on the sophistication of the students.

“Mostly, it’s countries that haven’t even seen digital evidence before,” said Eric Waldrep, a Foley police investigator who works part time as a private contractor for Dimitrelos’ firm.

Waldrep recalled a training session in Uganda in Africa, where some of the investigators came from remote villages that lacked electricity and running water.

“They went from not ever seeing a computer or handling a mouse to being able to process a crime scene,” he said.

Why would a poor, rural nation with relatively few computers introduce its police to the intricacies of digital evidence-gathering? And why would the U.S. make it a priority to provide the training?

“Because the terrorists are hiding there,” said Waldrep, noting that terror groups look for less-advanced countries for that very reason.

‘Boring CSI’Â Â

Dimitrelos and his trainers often encounter language barriers as well as the experience gap. In fact, Dimitrelos may have to deal with three languages at once — English, the language of the students, and the peculiar vernacular of the world of computers.

“We always have an interpreter, and that’s a challenge for us,” he said.

For example, the digital forensics term “intrusion,” gets translated as “rape” in some languages, he said.

To avoid confusion, Dimitrelos said, he instructs interpreters to repeat technical terms in English and not try to convert them to the native tongue.

The key lesson to impart, he said, is that data from a computer device is always somewhere in the machine — it just has to be found.

The discovery process, he added, is often painstaking.

“We’re the boring CSI,” he said. “It’s very monotonous. You have to look at a lot of little elements.”

Not every country where he’s worked is starting from scratch. Some have digital forensics investigators who are quite knowledgeable, Dimitrelos said.

On a recent trip to Jamaica, his team found that the Caribbean island nation had a modern system for evaluating and prioritizing computer crimes cases. But it had a large and growing backlog — some 1,700 pieces of stored evidence translating to a four-year pileup.

“The Secret Service had some of the exact same issues,” Dimitrelos said.

He said he suggested that Jamaica set up a preview room — similar to one that exists at his company in downtown Mobile — where investigators who are not computer experts can work on low-priority cases that do not require a great deal of computer skill. This would include such tasks as identifying stolen computers.

That allows the expert investigators to concentrate on the more-complicated, higher-priority cases, he said.

When he’s not out of the country or performing forensics investigations in federal criminal cases under a contract from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Mobile, Dimitrelos spends time working to build his company.

Raised in south Florida, Dimitrelos said he immediately took a liking to the Mobile region when he arrived in 2005 to help organize the state computer crime lab.